When I lived in Chiloe, I spent a lot of time in Castro`s City Archive. When I left Chiloe in March 2011, the man who had passed me the books started writing to me. First I wondered to the many spelling errors I saw in his e-mails - didn`t really fit the profile I had of a typical archivist. And then I was even more astonished when to his question about Estonia I suggested a book "Purge" by Sofi Oksanen and received the most unexpected confession: the man had never read a book in his life.
I pictured him working each day in that archive surrounded by all that literature, never picking up one book, or in fact doing nothing but that if literally speaking.
Quite recently, nearly two years after the last letter. I received an e-mail from Castro. It was from that same archivist saying that he had finished reading the book. The letter also noted that Castro`s City Archive was closing and that he was going travelling.
How ironic, yet at the same time unquestionably wise and patient is life when puts us in such mind-puzzling environments. And only when we stop resisting, and take what offered, it sets us free. Seen it like that the end is not something regretful, on the contrary it is a graduation.
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